Where Music Comes to Play

Polaroid MPA-20011 microSD Flash Player – Surprisingly Cool

This player came to me as a surprise. Nothing I would expect from an underdog like Polaroid. The MPA-20011 (I hope they change the name) is a flash-based player that will come in 512MB or 1GB models (they have not yet finalized the capacity). It is packed with all the basic features such as voice recording, FM recording, MP3/WMA audio playback, MPEG/WMV video playback, JPEG photo viewer, and a 25-hour rated battery. The screen looks fantastic measuring in at 2.2”. It also accepts microSD flash memory for up to an additional 2GB.

But what sets this player apart is the navigation and GUI. The navigation is handled by a Blackberry-like jog dial and button on the right side of the player. The GUI is also very smooth and intuitive.

The player will go on sale at Target stores come March. The price has not been set, so stay tuned to your local Target shelves.

Full video demo and more pics below.

34 Comments

nice…looks kind of thick & big to hold just 1GB internally. It’s similar along the lines of the Insignia NS-DV in form factor and specs. I would imagine there will be at least a 4GB model in the near future……

It will support up to a 4 Gb micro SD card. I have one and I’m still learning how to use it. I can’t find anything about it on the Polaroid website even though the user manual says to go there for software updates and support. By the way, I have had it only a few hours. It was given to me as a gift. It is quite small, thinner but about the same size as my Rio 2.5 Gb player.

I just got one myself, and I’m reasonably pleased overall, and insanely happy about couple points.It ended up as part of Polaroid’s “$99 value menu” (including a 5mp digicam, an SDcard camcorder, a DVD player, and a digital picture frame).It is USB Storage Class, people: I plugged it into my Win2k machine, and it just came up, no muss, no fuss, no WMP10 or 11. Two drives: the internal and the card slot. Noice.It has a few weak spots in the UI, though. Notably, there are *lots* of places that they should have used scroll-click for access to a context menu that they didn’t. The firmware is 2.x, so clearly, this is a chassis someone else is using somewhere…I’ll be writing up a full review for ePinions over the week; I’ll come back here and post a link when I do — this is the number one Google hit at the moment.Oh, and everyone else appears to agree; lack of comment on teh packaging notwithstanding, apparently it’s the “Swinger”.

Annoyingly, the player only supports .PLA playlist files generated by WMP 10 or 11 during a sync operation with the player. Even worse, playlists appear to be the only way to play MP3 files sequentially from the microSD card and must be copied from the SD card to the player’s internal memory playlist directory. For some reason, the SD card’s contents never appear in the player’s Music Library even though the player asks if you want to read the SD card and then pauses for 20 seconds or so.Its quite nice otherwise.

Ah, x; is *that* what’s going on?No WMP new enough to subject me to draconian DRM EULA amendments ever gets on to my machine, so I saw the failing, but not the solution.Perhaps we’ll get lucky, and they’ll release firmware that can auto-merge like-named directories on the card with those internal.It’s much less fetching and recommendable to the people who need Mass-Storage Class support (IE: Linux-heads like me) without that.Review still to follow.

Seems to me that a firmware update would solve most of this players problems. For only being $99, it does offer quite a bit. Video, FM Tuner/Recorder (more on that feature in a moment) and photo.With only 4 buttons this player is easy to navigate with.The screen is a good size and photos and video appear quite clearly.Sound quality is great and ofcourse being able to throw in a Micro SD card means you can add up to 4GB.These are all great features which is why I wont give this player a fail.But Polaroid could have done just a little more to make this a great player and it all has to do with it’s operation.For example, this past weekend, I went to a convention where they broadcasted a signal on an FM band. I decided to record the presentations for reviewing later. The problem is that when I ran out of space on the internal memory (only 512mb), it was done. I still had 2GB left on my micro SD card but there is no way of writing directly to it. I couldn’t even move files from internal to external memory.Second of all, I don’t like the fact that I can’t play more then one track on the External drive at a time. I’m sure if I created a playlist that I could do that. Here is the problem with that. You can only use playlists created by WMP 10,11. I’d be happy to upgrade to WMP 10 but apparently Microsoft only allows that on XP. The support details on the package “left” that out.I would even settle for being able to make a playlist using the recorder, but the Music Library won’t show anything from the External Memory.These issues aren’t even that big of a deal. At least they wouldn’t be if Polaroid bothered to support their product. Visiting the website will only serve to frustrate you more for the following reason.If you were like me you have noticed that regardless of the operating system you are using, the video conversion program was missing from the directory. I’m assuming a few other people have had this problem, because that was the one topic that was addressed on the website. Polaroid specifically says in the manual, the software is available either on the player or you can get it from the website….. It isn’t on the website. Polaroid simply addresses the question and tells you how to locate the program on the player. They have yet to respond to my issue of not even having the program in the first place.This player has great potential, it just stumbles out of the gate. If polaroid would simply man up and provide even minimal support this would be an incredible value.

I saw a Polaroid MPA-20011S in Target about a month ago and just bought a used one (the only one at the time) off eBay a week or so ago. I do own a 3G iPod (for better, for worse) and my comparisons are based on my experience with it and with friends’ video iPods.The MPA looks to be a well-built consumer grade product. It is definitely entry-level in finish and looks, but doesn’t appear to be flimsy. Being used, I decided to wipe the device and start fresh. This was easily done with WMP and the few songs I have there sync’d with no problems.My main intentions for the device are to be a cheap hand-held video machine for my wife. My eBay seller didn’t include any docs and the Polaroid encoding software wasn’t on the device or the Polaroid website per the PDF manual I had dl’d.No problem! The manual contained detailed specs of the video encoding standards supported (although not in one place). In a few minutes I had converted videos on both my PC (MediaCoder) and my Mac (Handbrake) to be usable with the MPA (320×240 AVIs [MP4 vid/MP3 audio], 20 fps).I’m not sure what the specifics of the MPA are, but my Mac cannot mount the device. I suspected that it would show up as a disk drive, but no. So, I mounted it on my PC and copied media from my Mac onto it. After some fine-tuning of my transcoding software I had movies up and running.Today I added a 2GB microSD card to it. This has revealed two of my biggest gripes with the MPA:1. Media copied onto the microSD card (external storage according to the MPA) is not integrated into regular menu categories. Perhaps I haven’t done something correctly, but all the videos on the microSD are only accessible by browsing for them. Minor, and possibly fixable with a firmware upgrade.2. The microSD slot seems to have a locking problem. I put the card in, but when I took it out to show off to my wife how amazingly small 2GB was the eject mechanism would not lock back in place. I finally had to take a paperclip, lock the eject mechanism in place, and then put the microSD card in. I’m not sure what the problem is, but am not too put out with this work-around. Still, it really should work.Again, the main idea I had in buying this was to get something with video iPod-like capabilities for a fraction of the price. I think I have certainly accomplished that. The MPA may lack the polish–both in terms of interface and construction– of the main players in the market, but it certainly does what it says to do and does that reasonably well.

Yo! this player is hot, I got it on the weekend. I bought off my friend for $50. He only had a few songs but I hooked it up. It’s like taking Windows Media Player with you. I’m going to buy a 2gb Sandisk. It plays the Video’s with good sound and video quality. I converted my videos with MediaCoder which is a free program to convert videos; make sure you have Firefox so you can use the extensions on MediaCoder. Polaroid is going to release 2 bigger versions with wifi, touchscreen, and 30-40gb. I just wish I could add more stuff or mod it like a palm with alt icons or something to fit my style. :>

I got this used from a friend and have had nothing but trouble. It doesn’t want to show video if any sort and whatever conversion software it had … it no longer has. I can’t find it on the Polaroid site at all. Can anyone help me? Thanks!

I just got two of these things @ Target for $25. each. I plan on keeping one and giving the other as a gift. The issue I am having with mine is that it will hang on shutdown, that sunset comes up and that is where it stays until I reset the device. Any suggestions?

Don’t buy anything from Polaroid . . . No customers service if past warranty.Here is my story and emails I sent to Polaroid.I enjoyed the player until it stop working. If I plug USB after reset process screen flashes “do not disconnect”then I get a white screen for a split second then the screen goes blackand the process goes over. This will keep happening until I unplug theplayer from the USB port.When I unplug the player and turn it on the blue start up screen comesup then initializing. . ., then I get Boot Error 1, Shutting down; -13,then the unit shuts down in about 10 seconds.To a Supervisor or to whom it may concern,I talked with Danielle on 8/15/07 at 8:28 am. I was told that I would be contacted by phone to inform me how much it would cost to repair my unit, I am still waiting.Why am I not surprised after all I have been through . . .I cannot tell you how exhausted I am of dealing with this whole issue. It started with the first unit I purchased which did not work. I exchanged it the next day. When it first started acting up (middle/end of June) I waited to report it because of my past experience with other companies support service. (Not knowing that I was closing in on the warranty expiring). When I tried to research the problem on the internet several times. I found the ask question page. When I (thought) sent (7/12/07) the question after receiving the message on screen that said ” Auto – Response We are currently experiencing a higher than usual . . . and appreciate your patience”. So I thought the question was submitted. So I waited for over a week for a response, because I was told to be patient. After I finally went back online after I tried to contact you by phone, which I waited on the phone for a support person for over 15 minutes, I hung up and went online, again. I realize that I needed to have entered the “Auto response” screen for my question to go through.This has been less then pleasant or satisfying experience for me. I was very pleased with the player and I told all my friends about the product until it started malfunctioning. But, because of this experience I will have modified my views of Polaroid and their products.Sincerely unhappy,2nd email I sent Polaroid:Will I ever get a resolution?I have spent over 6 months of my life trying to get a resolution to my problem. I have been more then patient. I have wasted way more time then this should have taken up.If I do not get this resolved this time I will spend my next 6 months posting this ridiculous and incompetent story on every website I can.I have still never heard back from them.What I have come to understand . . . Polaroid does not have customer support service ! ! !

Hello Joey. When you have that problem please first try to do a hard reset (with the option one side of the microphone just one push with a clip) of the MPA Player, or in case you can not access in any way to the Player try with the Usb and delete the Information (Mp3´s pictures and any kind of data you may have … Don´t delete the program files you have. Only what´s on your Record Folder. Sorry but that´s the only way to resolve the Boot Error, hope you find this Useless.

Hello Joey. When you have that problem please first try to do a hard reset (with the option one side of the microphone just one push with a clip) of the MPA Player, or in case you can not access in any way to the Player try with the Usb and delete the Information (Mp3´s pictures and any kind of data you may have … Don´t delete the program files you have. Only what´s on your Record Folder. Sorry but that´s the only way to resolve the Boot Error, hope you find this Useless.

Im having the same problems that DAvid:The issue I am having with mine is that it will hang on shutdown, that sunset comes up and that is where it stays until I reset the device. Any suggestions?..please help..

Im having the same problems that DAvid:The issue I am having with mine is that it will hang on shutdown, that sunset comes up and that is where it stays until I reset the device. Any suggestions?..please help..

Im having the same problems that DAvid:The issue I am having with mine is that it will hang on shutdown, that sunset comes up and that is where it stays until I reset the device. Any suggestions?..please help..

Im having the same problems that David:The issue I am having with mine is that it will hang on shutdown, that sunset comes up and that is where it stays until I reset the device. Any suggestions?..please help..

All right dudes. I also was troubled with the famous Boot Error 1, system will shut down. This is the way i solve it.First or all you’ve got to go to a computer that doesn’t have been installed the MPA. You need to download the Firmware upgrade program from http://www.polaroid.com and install it in the computer. After you have installed it you connect the MPA and when the window of what you want to do appears select cancel. After that open the Firmware upgrade softwar, check the format data space box and upgrade it. After a little while the firmware will upgrade disconnect the MPA and the problem is solved. At least that worked for me. Hope will be helpfully for someone.

All right dudes. I also was troubled with the famous Boot Error 1, system will shut down. This is the way i solve it.First or all you’ve got to go to a computer that doesn’t have been installed the MPA. You need to download the Firmware upgrade program from http://www.polaroid.com and install it in the computer. After you have installed it you connect the MPA and when the window of what you want to do appears select cancel. After that open the Firmware upgrade softwar, check the format data space box and upgrade it. After a little while the firmware will upgrade disconnect the MPA and the problem is solved. At least that worked for me. Hope will be helpfully for someone.

Hi all!I’ve just got one for my nameday, but I got a big problem: I can’t play videos properly on this gadget. I start one then it plays for 3 or 4 secs then the screen stops and jump over about a 5 secs-part and this method continoues. Has anybody this kind of trouble? I’d be glad if someone could know a solution for it.

Hi Sid. To play videos you have to use de Polaroid vide converter.That’s the only way to play them correctly. If you simple cut an paste happens the problem you’re facing.What I wanto to know is How in th f**cking hell can I make the playlist to play music storaged in the Mini SD. I would apreciatte if somebody can tell me.

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